The Louisiana Supreme Court issued a stay early Friday on by a New Orleans grand jury, pausing the criminal prosecution of Louisiana’s top lawyer and excoriating what one justice termed a “quagmire” of irregularities surrounding the case.
Murrill, a Republican, was charged Thursday with 16 felony counts of malfeasance in office and intimidation over letters she sent in May to several New Orleans officials, warning that they had put their positions in jeopardy by opposing a new state law consolidating the city’s criminal and district clerks of court.
Murrill filed an emergency motion Thursday evening asking the to review the indictment, which was returned in a closed courtroom at New Orleans’ Criminal District Court earlier that afternoon. Her attorneys’ filing asked the state’s high court to either quash the indictment or stay the proceedings.
In a remarkable move that one dissenting justice and legal observers said would hardly ever befall a typical defendant, the Supreme Court issued its stay Friday morning after weighing what the order described as a laundry list of issues with the indictment. The three-page order points to alleged conflicts of interest in the prosecution, claims of politically-tinged grand jury tampering and a during the indictment’s return that the high court said raised serious transparency questions.
The justices also noted how the Supreme Court had the law consolidating the city’s clerkships, which eliminated the position won by former life prisoner and criminal clerk-elect . That law had spawned a back-and-forth between Republican state officials and Democratic city leaders that culminated Thursday with Murrill’s criminal indictment.
“While the record before this Court is undeveloped, there is considerable support for the view that the Attorney General is likely to succeed on the merits of a motion to quash this indictment on either a legal basis or due to apparent procedural irregularities,” the justices wrote in an unsigned opinion on behalf of the court.
The Supreme Court issued the stay with a five-member majority, while Chief Justice and Justice dissented. Justices in the majority noted that the stay did not reach the merits of the case.
The pause on Murrill’s criminal indictment represents a swift victory for the attorney general after what amounted to an extraordinary escalation in the between state and city leaders.
“This matter is not over,” Murrill said in a statement Friday morning. “I will still need to file the necessary motions to seek a dismissal, which will be forthcoming. I want to thank the many friends and supporters who have expressed their support and encouragement.”
Calling the process a “political witch hunt,” Murrill slammed the special prosecutor, judge and grand jury in the case as “rogue, biased and vindictive.”
By Friday night, Murrill asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to weigh in again on the arrest warrant and $400,000 bond set in the case. She alleged that the case’s special prosecutor refused to recall the warrant despite the stay of the indictment.
In their dissents over staying the indictment, Weimer and Guidry each expressed concern that court had skipped over the typical process to jump into a high-profile case involving a prominent state official.
“This is not supposed to be how the system works,” Guidry wrote. “Can our court truly say with a straight face after today’s ruling, on the eve of the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence, that we truly believe that no one is above the law?”
‘Rapidly escalating quagmire’
After the indictment was returned, Murrill’s attorney, Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue, alleged in a press conference and in emergency filings to the Supreme Court that the grand jury process was beset by leaks and political interference. She wrote to the Supreme Court that the grand jury had been “co-opted by political actors for political purposes.”
The Supreme Court’s order suggests the court accepted much of Rodrigue’s argument. While it is unusual for the high court to intervene this early in a case, the justices wrote that they have the authority to act “when the issues presented are extraordinary in nature.”
“This indictment appears to turn the law on its head and flows from what appear to be extraordinary procedural defects and improprieties,” the order reads.
The justices in the majority criticized the appointment of a special prosecutor, , who they wrote was conflicted in the proceeding because the attorney general’s office represents White in a sexual harassment claim her tenure on the bench. White also previously represented Duncan, a former jailhouse lawyer freed from prison when a judge found him innocent, before his case was taken over by the Innocence Project.
Those conflicts of interest “should have been obvious,” the Supreme Court’s order reads.
Writing in a concurrence, Justice Jay McCallum called the allegations in Murrill’s filings troubling.
“If they prove to be even partially accurate, then additional proceedings before the newly reconstituted Judiciary Commission and Office of Disciplinary Counsel will no doubt become necessary,” he said, referencing the offices that discipline judges and attorneys.
Justice Piper Griffin wrote in a concurrence that she shared Guidry’s concerns about whether a true emergency existed, but that issuing a stay that does not reach the merits of the case “allows this Court to ultimately resolve this rapidly escalating quagmire.”
Roche responds
The Supreme Court order lambasts Criminal District Court Judge Leon Roche for shuttering his courtroom as the grand jury returned its indictment, and court security officers of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office for handcuffing and detaining news reporters who pointed to state law that calls for grand jury returns to occur “in open court.”
“By all public accounts the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court violated express provisions of state law requiring that grand jury returns occur in the public eye, ‘in open court,’” the order reads, of Louisiana’s Code of Criminal Procedure. “Numerous media outlets have stated that reporters were handcuffed and removed from these otherwise public proceedings.”
WWL-TV producer Danny Monteverde and a lawyer representing the news station, Elana Beiser, while reporters waited in the hallway to reenter Roche’s courtroom after the judge ordered it cleared. Monteverde and other reporters had objected to the closed nature of the proceedings, and Beiser had arrived with a printed motion for Roche to reopen the courtroom.
In a filing of his own to the Supreme Court later on Friday, Roche argued that the stipulation saying returns must occur in “open court” means only that a judge must be present on the bench — not that the public or media should be allowed.
“If that were the case,” Roche wrote, “any number of criminal defendants, nefarious actors, or otherwise interested parties could pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding grand jury proceedings that is enshrined in Louisiana law.”
Roche called it a “long-standing practice” by trial court judges in Orleans Parish to clear the public from courtrooms before bringing in grand jurors to receive returns.
Leading up to Murrill’s indictment, Roche’s filing said, news reporters “descended upon” the court. He accused reporters of standing in the parking lot, walking around the courthouse basement where the grand jurors were meeting and trying to communicate with the grand jurors.
Roche said he told deputies to clear the courtroom when grand jurors entered and said he “admonished” the media not to speak to them. No reporters were cuffed in his courtroom, he noted.
The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office issued a statement Friday saying deputies’ response came after Roche ordered them to secure the courtroom.
“It is our understanding that OPSO personnel acted in accordance with the directives they received and worked to ensure an orderly conclusion to the proceedings and safe passage for all persons involved,” spokesperson Calandra Corder said.
Wide-reaching impact
News of Murrill’s indictment, and of the Supreme Court’s ruling, reverberated across political circles and in the national media.
In a statement, Gov. Jeff Landry thanked the Supreme Court for its decision after saying Thursday that he would pardon Murrill if she were convicted.
“These type of abuses and misuse of public monies to carry out this illegal proceeding is an example of why New Orleans is in a budget crisis,” the governor wrote. “Instead of spending money to prosecute thugs, you spend money to prosecute the prosecutor. Ridiculous!”
Some legal observers shared Weimer and Guidry’s concern that, by going straight to the Supreme Court, Murrill received treatment inconsistent from that available to most other criminal defendants.
“The lower courts are not inferior courts meant only for those without means or title or prestige,” Weimer wrote in his dissent.
Rarely, if ever, does a “regular” defendant “get the Supreme Court reaching down to halt the case the day after indictment,” veteran defense lawyer Craig Mordock, who frequently practices in New Orleans criminal court, wrote .
“However, the Court didn’t invent these facts,” Mordock said. “Orleans Parish handed them this clown show.”
Staff writer Justin Mitchell contributed to this report.